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Awesomly Lifetime: Jodi Arias Dirty Little Secret

It’s time to review a Lifetime movie because Lifetime is all the fun I’m having these days (hey, I could make another set of MBE questions and you know you wouldn’t want to read about YA characters committing various torts, or having contract disputes, or even worse real property issues (oh, the excitement of YA characters having mortgage issues)) and today I decided to dig out another one of Lifetime’s staple genres. Real life stories, in this case the Jodi Arias story. Which was only resolved (sort of) a month ago. That just shows you the “quality” of these productions. Though admittedly this one was enjoyable in the let’s see how bad they can butcher a movie sort of way.

Melodramatic Summary: Jodi Arias is a crazy bitch, according to Lifetime and a good percentage of the population. Lifetime of course decides to exploit this fact from the first time she enters the movie and she gets crazier and raunchier and the movie continues. If you’re watching it because you want to see the crazy antics at the trial you can just wathc the last fifteen minutes. A lot of the movie is spent with her boiling bunnies.

Review:

Oh, man.

I honestly watched this because I thought hey…educational study break. I can review crim law and criminal procedure while watching this. Instead I got toxic relationships, bad sex, and why some people should not wear fishnets.

I think Lifetime jumped the gun a little too much with this one. It wasn’t God awful persay, but I think it would’ve been better if they would’ve waited till the trial wrapped up and focused more on after the murder than before the murder.

I also wish they would’ve portrayed Travis in a better light. I think the actor did a fairly good job, but if Jodi wasn’t…well, Jodi he would’ve been one of those jerkwad boyfriends in the romantic comedy Lifetime movies that got dumped. Even with his relationship with Rated G Virgin in the movie, I couldn’t warm up to him and I actually thought he and that actress had some nice chemistry. And if Lifetime was actually writing a movie based on fiction than real life, it might’ve been nice to see the Rated G take on and beat the shit out of Jodie Arias.

Him and Jodie though.

Well, I’ll let Britney sing it to you….

Seriously, I was like dude get a restraining order already. Any sensible person would after all the things Jodi did in the movie. She just came off as creepy. And I know Travis was supposed to be this good religious character, but the religious people I know aren’t dumb enough to know when to use their pepper spray on their crazy ex. It probably also doesn’t help to tell your non-Mormon crazy girlfriend that you’re only planning on marrying a Mormon.

Grant it, I think he honestly thought Jodi liked having a no strings relationship at this point and hiding in his bedroom and that just seemed ridiculous to me.

Balance. That’s what this movie needed.

In addition to the cartoonish characterization, more time should’ve been spent on the aftermath of the murder than ninety minutes leading up to the aftermath. The trial itself was crazy. The entire process has been going on for five years, while the relationship that Arias had with Travis only was like one year or so.

Ridiculous.

And we didn’t even really see any true development with the characters. Most of the development was spent on showing how Jodi Arias looked without her clothes and I really don’t want to see that.

And the big ominous moment shot was not an emotional spiral into madness, but her dyeing her hair. I kid you not.

It just seemed rush. Sex, sex, sex, sex, then she goes crazy on Travis, they then have sex again, she kills him after Rated G calls him, she acts like America’s dumbest criminal and, well, the end.

Really, really, bad.

I was actually looking forward to this one too. Educational experience and, well, I was sort of addicted to HLN during the trial.

HLN was better than this and so was CNN.

This was just…blah.

Lifetime Squee: Not so much squee here more like raunch. The guy who they got to play Travis was good looking, but I really thought his portrayal was wooden and frat boyish. And the sex scenes he had with Jodie-yuck. I much prefer him with Rated G, their relationship was sweet.

Oh. My. God. Lifetime Moment: The murder. Man it was graphic, brutal, but at the same time oddly comical. Not because it was comical but the way it was filmed was cliche and the camera angles and everything just…well, you could tell it was put together fast especially since the blood really did look like ketchup. I still wanted to puke though, so that being said I think they did a good job getting the fact that what happened was horrific.

Not the sort of visual effect you want to see.

Overall Rating: Two out of ten Dean Cains. I really thought at times I was watching a movie that should’ve been on one of those stations…. And yes, I know the Jodi Arias case is sort of explicit and I should’ve expected much after reading fifty or so MBE questions involving gold studded thongs and blood stained machetes, but seriously this movie made me sort of glad I decided to give up on those dreams of becoming a prosecutor after I watched that episode of The Practice where Lindsay gets stabbed by a guy in a nun’s costume. Of course, most jurisdictions don’t have a Jodi Arias. But they might just have a stiletto killer.